


intertwined, overrun

by ewagan



Series: SASO 2017 Fills [26]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Getting Together, M/M, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 14:59:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11946675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewagan/pseuds/ewagan
Summary: Daiki, Daiki. Even his name is light and Kise’s eyes follow Aomine around the court, like a sunflower turned towards the sun.alternately, an aokise manifesto.





	1. nerve

**Author's Note:**

> me, joking: hey guys do u want an aokise manifesto
> 
> friends: SHOVES PROMPTS MY WAY
> 
> so anyways, here's to them, enablers the bunch of them, here's to aokise and my love letter to them. 
> 
> this is admittedly very condensed at certain points and some parts have been glossed over, so honestly i'd recommend supplementing with watching/reading the series if you haven't already.
> 
> title taken from Sara Bareilles' [The Light](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2mKdIhU_QQ)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nerve, n.: I’ve got a lot of it for feeling hurt so strongly; you’ve got a lot of it for ignoring this fact repeatedly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [prompt here](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/25713.html?thread=15875953#cmt15875953)

They start like this, a stray basketball to the head and a jaded boy who is finding something new, someone new to aspire to. Aomine is different, raw potential and a deep abiding love for the game, plays basketball with his heart and his soul and Kise admires it. He admires the sheer passion that keeps Aomine playing, and he recognizes it in Kuroko, even if it takes longer for him to see it in Kuroko.

Daiki, Daiki. Even his name is light and Kise’s eyes follow Aomine around the court, like a sunflower turned towards the sun. Kise has never found someone like this before and if he stares too much, he only says he is learning from watching Aomine.

He can’t stop watching Aomine.

It’s exhausting sometimes, to be so committed to a club and to his modelling work and to school as well but Kise thrives on it, lives for the one on ones with Aomine until they’re both gasping on the floor even as he promises to beat Aomine one day. Aomine only ever laughs and offers him a hand, and he takes it. It’s warm and steady, something like a promise and if Kise’s heart wavers just a little, it’s his secret to keep.

_Aominecchi, let’s play!_

They play more than just basketball. They play smaller games, more inconsequential games, where there is no prize for winning. Aomine’s disarmingly honest, painfully thoughtless at times, and rude beyond Kise’s imagining, but he also makes Kise laugh, makes him smile in earnest, makes him more honest in ways Kise is afraid to be honest. And maybe they’re too noisy and constantly bickering, but they’re just stupid fourteen year old boys, trying everything they can get their hands on.

He thinks it can last forever, this. Kise keeps playing basketball, looks at Aomine with stars in his eyes and tries even harder. He thinks _one day, one day_ like a mantra, something to keep him going even when Aomine gets better and better.

It shouldn’t hurt so much when Aomine says that it’s pointless and stops coming to practices. Kise’s left to play by himself, dribbling and feinting, imagining Aomine opposite him. Some of it feels like he was not enough for Aomine, and it hurts far more than he’d like to admit. But he also understands, even if he’s bitter about it. He shoots another basket and watches it go in, net swishing gently. Kuroko might practice with him but Kuroko’s always made a better partner than opponent, and Midorima only ever shoots three pointers from too far, so Kise’s left at a loose end too often.

He thinks Kuroko notices, but Kuroko also takes his cheerful smile, insincere as it is, and lets him be. Aomine doesn’t look at all, and that hurts the most. His absence is something Kise feels keenly, and the gym seems to echo with the lack of something that makes Kise grit his teeth and want to leave. Aomine never truly means to be cruel Kise knows, but sometimes he is cruel in his thoughtlessness, in his ignorance.

In the end, Kise also stops coming for practices. He plays in the streets instead, against other kids, the sound of a basketball on cement and the sun on his neck because he doesn’t quite know how to give it up yet. His stylist complains he’s going to ruin his skin and Kise laughs her off even as she foists more skin care products on him, but he takes them home and uses them. He fills his newly emptied schedule with other things, and tries to fill the hole where his one on ones with Aomine used to fit. He has no right to demand Aomine’s time, he reminds himself.

When he leaves Teikou, it’s with offers to go far away and a cynicism that seems set into his bones. He doesn’t look back when he leaves, only moves forward and onward.


	2. mean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mean, adj.: When you know a person’s weakness and use it to build your own strength; it hurts more coming from someone you love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [prompt here](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/25713.html?thread=15877489#cmt15877489)

Kise comes into the Interhigh with new hopes and a new team, a determination to go as far as he can, as they can. He’s learned something in the months since he’s last seen Aomine, found value in a thing Teikou had discarded as useless.

Kise used to say _one day, some day_. But it’s not some day anymore, it’s today.

He always thought he knew Aomine best. They’d played game after game after game and it always hurt to lose, but Kise never stopped trying. He’s lost to Aomine a hundred different ways and he still kept trying. He just never thought Aomine cared enough to say the same of him but being told this hurts. For all that it is done subconsciously, it hurts far more than it has any right to.

But Aomine’s here in front of him and they’re in the middle of a game, and Kise’s heart is pounding so hard in his chest that it almost hurts. He’s breathless even though he’s not quite out of stamina. So he focuses on the game instead, lets the faith his senpai have in him fuel him while they play, scrambling for points. Aomine still moves with an easy effortless grace, makes impossible shots and Kise cannot help but admire him. A part of him always will, even as he realizes that it holds him back.

 _I’ll quit. I’ll quit admiring you._ The words hurt to say but he knows he’s spent too long looking at that back and building it up to a god, to something more than he can be. Kise’s always been good at becoming someone else, anyone else. But he’s never let himself become Aomine, preferring to stand back and watch, to admire. He knows why he’s losing and it’s because he cannot bear to watch Aomine lose.

Gods are just clay statues at the end of the day, hoisted high upon fragile faith and blind admiration.

Kise lets go of his.

There is no shattering, no dramatics. Just quiet acceptance and an even quieter resignation. A look on Aomine’s face that is seared into Kise’s brain. Kuroko finds him while he ponders this, ponders them. He’s already given up Teikou. There’s only this left, the last thing he has to let go off.

He uses the third quarter and watches Aomine like he used to, marking the changes but also the things that are still the same. He tries, and he tries again, until Aomine issues his challenge. They struggle, but Kise feels another piece click into place. After that, there is only his blood singing in his veins and the basketball in his hands, then his feet are moving, making shots as he drives past Aomine. It’s exhilarating, it’s pure basketball and Kise’s never felt more invincible than he does now, but it also feels impossibly fragile.

His ankle gives out for a moment and then Aomine stops him in his tracks, and Kise can feel the loss beginning to settle in. But the game isn’t over and Kise’s not the only player on court. There’s value in that, in the strength he has and the strength they lend him, even if Aomine doesn’t see it now. Maybe it’s not enough, but Kise believes in it and what can come from it, and he desperately wants Aomine to see it too.

It hurts to get up, to pick himself up from a loss like this, to stand up when he’s fallen again and Aomine’s standing there, watching him try and fail. Kasamatsu is the one to reach down and pull him up, reminds him that they are here to be his strength too, when his own isn’t enough. It wasn’t enough today but he’s standing again, limping forwards, and it _hurts_.

For a moment, he wishes that it was Aomine who offered his hand and helped him up, the way he used to. He imagines it happens, that he takes the loss with grace, with a smile, that Aomine smiles like he used to and tells him _you played well_. Then there are tears and he’s not sure if it’s because this sits so bitter in his heart or because he wants it so badly he could almost throw up on it. Kasamatsu’s holding him up while they bow and Kise doesn’t look at Aomine again, doesn’t watch him walk away.

Aomine’s always been thoughtlessly cruel, but he’s never been deliberately cruel and Kise doesn’t know why it still makes him cry even as they walk off the court, their heads held high.


	3. i tried to keep you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Q: Who is your god?_  
>  A: I am pressing an open-mouthed prayer onto anything.  
> I have bent my body into fish-hooks; I keep you  
> from carving yourself out of me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [prompt here](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/25713.html?thread=15873905#cmt15873905)

The morning after in Interhigh match Kise wakes up with tears on his face and the sense he’s lost something important. He cries so hard he’s choking on it, but when he finally stops, he thinks he’s done crying over Aomine Daiki. The thing is, he’s spent so long trying to hold Aomine to him, bent himself backwards to keep Aomine a part of him. First as an ideal, then as a friend and then because of something like love, like infatuation. Having one part of it torn out feels like dying. Kise has let Aomine become a part of him and he doesn’t know what to do now he’s started letting go.

Interhigh feels like a raw, open wound and it hurts every time Kise thinks of it, but he’s come this far already and he still has further to go. So he pulls himself together and takes deep breaths, and thinks again, _some day, some day._ Some day, it will hurt less. Reminds himself he’s done something like this before, and he can do it again.

Autumn comes and it feels like a metaphor for Kise as the trees change colours and die, leaves shed for the winter. This is where he breaks his back and rebuilds himself and his beliefs, having torn down the pedestal that he’d put Aomine on. Aomine is not a god — only human, and only a boy at that. They’re both still boys, still children for all that he’s moved out of home and away for school, that he works to pay his own rent. But the memory of Aomine’s smile is still like a punch to the gut and it leaves Kise breathless sometimes, for all he’s been trying to let go.

He runs more, since he’s not allowed to play while he’s recovering. He pushes himself and runs far enough that his lungs burn and his legs shake, but he’s really _running_ for the first time in a long while, instead of chasing the empty pedestal where he used to place Aomine. It takes a while before he can stand on the court with his back straight and head lifted high, without feeling the weight of Interhigh on his shoulders. It takes even longer to stand on the court and start playing for himself, playing basketball because he loves it and not because he’s still reaching for Aomine.

He doesn’t know if he can ever tell Aomine this, but Aomine’s always managed to get a surprising amount of honesty out of him because he’s too stupid for all the pretend games Kise likes to play, facade after facade. In front of Aomine is when Kise’s he’s most honest and dishonest, still trying to hide as much as he can even as the words spill out of him.

He tests his new spine out in Winter Cup, watches as Kuroko fight out his ideals on a court, tests it against Midorima, against Aomine, watches as Aomine loses and sees something of the old Aomine in that match, in the way he reaches to bump Kuroko’s fist the way he used to. It feels like seeing the ghost of something he’d buried long ago, something he wasn’t sure he would see again. He fights his own ghosts too, in the form of Haizaki and he’s reminded how far he has already come.

He hears about the fight later from Momoi, and it feels like Aomine had punched him instead, because it hurts to know that Aomine cares. Kise’s spent so long trying to convince himself that Aomine cared, but the proof of it in his face _hurts_ , hurts more than the loss to Seirin. He cries that night, hot and bitter until he was wrecked from it, wrecked on Aomine. He cries like he’s never cried about anything or anyone, and he’d thought he was done crying about Aomine.

But Aomine’s still a part of him and Kise still doesn’t quite know how to be honest with himself about this, about how deeply Aomine has sunken into his bones. And maybe he’s succeeded in this, in keeping a part of Aomine. So he shows up to watch the Rakuzan-Seirin match and he meets Momoi after, hugs her and tells he he missed her, because when he’d left Teikou behind, he had also left Momoi behind. She just smiles at him, lovely and forgiving and kind, so kind.

He doesn’t know if they can all come back from it, but he thinks there’s a chance, there’s hope for it. He’s had to grow himself a new spine, build himself a new belief system when they had all come tumbling down, but he did it. And he wants to try, so he reaches out to Aomine again, stops looking for the Aomine from Teikou and starts looking at the Aomine in front of him now.


	4. just the way you looked in the light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I thought I loved you_  
>  But it's just how you looked in the light
> 
>  
> 
> \-- [Hum Hallelujah](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZtRK2LRfnI), Fall Out Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [prompt here](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/25713.html?thread=15890801#cmt15890801)

Putting the pieces back together is hard, but Kise keeps trying because it matters to him, because he doesn’t know how to give up Aomine. Honesty is still difficult and Kise spends more time arguing about inconsequential matters with Aomine than talking about the important things, but Kise looks at Aomine now and his heart aches a little less. Once he would have said yes without hesitation, he loved Aomine, sure of himself and his feelings, but now he’s not so sure anymore. Love is a complicated thing, and Aomine has put down roots in Kise’s heart, and Kise doesn’t know how to remove him. It’s difficult to say he loves Aomine now, but he supposes this feeling could be called something like that.

He thought he’d loved Aomine then, all strong limbs and sharp lines, rugged edges Kise had aspired to. But perhaps it was just a trick of the light, slanting just so to make Aomine a thing Kise had dreamed of. Kise’s older now and he knows more about lights and perspectives, the way they can make people seem more than they are, or something they are not. He thinks he forgets too often Aomine is also what he is: a stupid teenage boy, too thoughtless by half and painfully honest if you know how to read him just right, and Aomine’s never been a hard read.

They play together sometimes, when Kise is in Tokyo for work or visiting his parents. He talks to Momoi more than Aomine, though they still bicker plenty when they go for food after games. It still feels fragile, this recovery of what they used to be. Momoi’s always been more perceptive than Aomine and she smiles like she knows, and Kise knows she knows. _Oh Ki-chan,_ she says, lovely and kind as she always is, both of them trailing behind Aomine and talking softly. But then Aomine yells his name and Kise turns to him, the way he always has. He’s never been able to ignore Aomine.

They’re both not the same anymore, and Kise’s not fourteen years old and watching Aomine with stars in his eyes, looking at him like he was the sun. He’s not fifteen and jaded, standing on a basketball court and counting his losses. He’s sixteen and older and he’s just beginning to grow up, beginning to figure out which things matter and which things don’t.

Aomine now is still learning to hope, learning to love something he used to love with his whole heart. Victory is not everything and it’s a bitter lesson they’ve both had to learn. Kise still loses their one on ones more often than not, but Aomine’s hand is there to pull him up, Momoi’s smile and laughter in the air while Kise gasps, breath fogging up in the cold winter. It feels a lot less like a raw open wound now, healing slowly but Aomine’s smiles still catch him by surprise, the way it makes Kise’s heart pound in his chest.

They celebrate Kuroko’s birthday together, all of them. They play game after game, with each other, against each other, laugh and eat together, like the way they used to. Later, he and Aomine leave together. Aomine walks him to the train station while they bicker over unimportant things, and Kise can feel his heart swelling in his chest on the train home. He’s missed this, missed the way they used to be. He doesn’t cry, but it’s a close thing.

Winter melts into spring and spring blooms into summer, and he learns how to play with Aomine again. But they’ve never played like this before, not together, not at their hardest, at their best. It’s exhilarating, something Kise’s only ever thought about in passing but always discarded as a passing fancy, a pipe dream not meant to be. They play with their pride on the line and he pushes, pushes himself so hard he can barely stand, but he’s still full of bravado when he falls and Akashi catches him, spends the rest of the match watching Aomine play.

Later Aomine tells him _you played well_ , says it like he means it and Kise has to stop, curse his traitor heart for still wanting this, for being so glad for it. Aomine’s ahead of him now and Kise knows the lines of his back so well from spending so long chasing after it, but then Aomine turns around and comes back to him, concern on his face and asking _what’s wrong_ and _Kise are you crying why are you crying who do I have to punch_ and he’s denying it even as he scrubs at his face, wiping away tears even as he smiles at Aomine, honest and sincere. Aomine’s still looking at him with concern and Kise wants so much to kiss him, to confess a love that’s been growing over the last three years.

But Aomine’s hand is warm on his face as he wipes away a tear Kise missed, gentle and careful. Kise throws his arms around Aomine’s neck, stupid and impulsive and he knows there are tears welling up again, even as Aomine catches him while he cries into Aomine’s shoulder. _You’re so stupid, Aominecchi,_ he tells Aomine, once he’s finally stops crying again and Aomine’s looking at him, bewildered. _I can’t believe I’ve been in love with someone so stupid for so long,_ he mutters more to himself than to Aomine, but Aomine’s looking at him with a look Kise doesn’t know what to make of, choked and strangled when he asks _how long, how long have you been in love with me_ and Kise wants to laugh and cry all at once, only tells him _too long_. This is not the way confessions are supposed to go, but they’re both stupid idiots standing under streetlights and confessing secrets they thought they’d buried.

Aomine kisses him careful and gentle and in a very un-Aomine way, like Kise’s something precious and breakable, like something to treasure. It makes Kise want to cry again, biting his lip as he leans his forehead against Aomine’s, letting Aomine steady him as he tries to catch his breath.

Maybe once upon a time he’d been in love with the way Aomine had looked under the light, but he thinks he knows better now, knows what Aomine looks like in different times and places, what he looks like when there are no lights at all. Aomine Daiki is not a god, he is a boy. He is a stupid, stupid boy who doesn’t know how to say the words _I love you_ and Kise’s even stupider for loving him so much, but he loves him and Aomine loves him back, so they stand there, kissing under streetlights.

And maybe it’s just another trick of the light, but Kise would swear that this is where he falls in love again, with the way Aomine looks at him, the careful way he leans in to kiss him again.

**Author's Note:**

> pls come and yell at me about aokise im so weak. also there's a loose sort of sequel [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11950329) if you'd like to check that out.
> 
> Kudos and comments appreciated!
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ewagan)!


End file.
